Nothing Gold Can Stay
by Insanity-Plus
Summary: "Nature's first green is gold. Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; but only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, so dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay." -Robert Frost. IchiRuki. Dark Fic. Character Death. R&R!


**So I'm sitting here unable to sleep at 4 in the morning and I'm just derping around Facebook when a friend of mine posts a poem by Robert Frost. I read it and for some reason this idea came to me…**

**I'm so weird. **

**Also, I've been writing a lot from Ichigo's perspective lately. Well I thought I'd mix it up by doing this in Rukia's perspective. Though I feel it doesn't help that Ichigo is once again the victim of a deranged Rukia…next time I'll try to switch it up some more! **

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Bleach or any of the characters portrayed in this Fanfiction. They belong to Tite Kubo and Shonen Jump Magazine. Nor do I own the poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost. This is intended as only entertainment purposes. Please support the official release.**

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"Nature's first green is gold  
Her hardest hue to hold.  
Her early leaf's a flower;  
But only so an hour.  
Then leaf subsides to leaf.  
So Eden sank to grief,  
So dawn goes down to day.  
Nothing gold can stay." –Robert Frost.

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If life was darkness, then Ichigo was light.

That was what he was to Rukia; he fit her perfectly, he brought out her good side. He complimented her, was indeed her other half.

He was her _light._ He was brightness and sunshine and everything beautiful and wonderful all conveniently contained in a brash, orange haired boy who strived for the best in the world with the power of a God. He was pure, perfect, and Rukia would _kill_ anyone who took that away from him. She'd kill anyone who took the shine out of his deep amber eyes. He tried to protect her, under some naïve notion that she needed protecting; she let him have it, partly because it was endearing and partly because it was nice to have someone care for you that way even if you didn't deserve it.

Plus, he was a boy – he was bound to think that way and scoff at the idea that _he_ was the one who needed defending.

But he did. In a way, Ichigo was naïve. There were things in the world that would taint him, things that would crush him, things that would drain the soulfulness out of his eyes. Rukia needed to save him from that, because_, _as Robert Frost said, _nothing gold can stay. _

It didn't matter how Ichigo personified light, _he was gold, and he would eventually fade to green, just like how Eden did_ because nothing gold can stay.

She needed to save him from the world,_ this fucked up world,_ because a dark world like this didn't deserve someone like Kurosaki Ichigo.

She had already lost one of her boys_ – but was Kaien really hers to begin with?_ – and she refused to lose another.

He needed to be preserved as he was, perfect and untainted and loving and beautiful, unmarked by the bitterness of life.

Unscarred by the monsters that were known as people_ – unscarred by me._

And she did just that. She didn't use any weapons because she didn't want to mar her Angel any more than he already was. His scars were no less beautiful, but any ones that she'd inflict now would never heal.

She kissed him with painted lips_, poisoned lips_, and he went limp in her arms.

Their last embrace.

She kept him in a special room, one that was triple-locked and cool. He was placed on the pedestal that he should've been kept on his entire life – the one that he was denied time and time again. She'd give it to him now, and he'd keep it forever. He'd be loved and cherished and adored – she'd love him enough for all of _Seiretei_.

Aboveground, people were talking. People were starting to love him more, he wasn't just some _Ryoka_ anymore; well it was too late. His body was hers; he was art, perfection, on the canvas that _she_ painted.

She would visit him every day to talk. He didn't respond much,_ which was so wrong, so wrong,_ but that was okay. He listened and he was smiling, _his mouth held upwards with black stitching because it wouldn't stay up any other way_. That was all that mattered, that smile, those eyes_ – button eyes_ – brown like swirls of the chocolate he loved so much. She would eat chocolate every time she visited him, because it reminded her of the one thing his eyes represented.

Beauty_ and pain._

He'd stay like that forever; young and beautiful and loved, protected from the dirty dark world that didn't deserve him.

He was perfect, except for his eyes. They were shut now; she had done that, to avoid staring at empty sockets. She'd sown dark brown buttons with flecks of amber over them, once she found the right color.

She kept his eyes in a safe place by her bedside, because they were beautiful and lovely and when she stared at them she could just hear his voice, saying_ I'll protect you, Rukia. _

He hadn't been able to keep his promise. But that was okay. She'd made a promise, too. A silent one. A vow to protect him from the world and everything in it –

-and that included herself. _Because I damaged him more than anyone._

Sometimes she felt guilty, because she'd never hear his voice again, but that didn't matter as much.

She had his eyes.

And the memories.

And the reassurance that he was safe from the ugly, ugly world that had scarred him.

He would stay golden.

_Forever._

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_**REVIEW!**_


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